The practice of endoscopic or minimally-invasive surgery is becoming more widely used because it is less traumatic than conventional open surgery, thus reducing hospitalization times and costs as well as minimizing patient risk and discomfort. With endoscopic surgery, only a relatively short incision is necessary, with the endoscopic instrument being passed through this incision. A tissue-protective port is sometimes used to minimize tissue trauma on the walls of the incision. Various types of endoscopic instruments are passed through the small incision and appropriate surgical procedures are carried out.
One type of endoscopic instrument is forceps having end-effectors specially configured to grasp, manipulate or cut or staple tissue. Conventional forceps typically use scissors-type of thumb and finger rings. Such forceps, although appropriate for cutting and simple grasping tasks for open surgical procedures, are unusable for many minimally-invasive surgical tasks, such as placing sutures or staples during endoscopic procedures; conventional forceps require the physician to radially reposition the entire instrument to adjust the radial orientation of the end-effector.